


He's Not You

by fraidy_bat



Series: Loose Ends [1]
Category: She's the Man (2006)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Femslash, High School, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 08:12:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7794133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraidy_bat/pseuds/fraidy_bat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olivia reflects on everything that's happened since Viola Hastings, in one form or another, entered her life.  A post-movie story that delves into all the unresolved issues.  Yes, I promise femslash, lol.  Originally posted on ff.net many years ago, now on ao3 with some polishing. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I really should have figured it out. I should have. I looked right at her so many times, even thought she looked familiar that time at the kissing booth when she came to my rescue and took my place there. I should have noticed that they had the same bright, round eyes and the same ready grin. She sat across from me in class for two weeks, and I just didn't see.

But why would I have wanted to? He was so… _perfect_. It was an odd moment, bumping into Sebastian outside of Principal Gold's office. He was short and kind of scrawny, and he clearly wasn't exactly the most socially apt individual. The odd part was the little flip my stomach did when our eyes met the first time. _Him? Really, Olivia? Yes, him._ Despite the out of place interest in my shoes and where I bought them (how did I not _know_?), I was immediately attracted to Sebastian. He was so adorable and nice and not like the other boys at school, it was as though I simply couldn't help myself. I'd absolutely had enough of the thickheaded jock type, apparently.

Ending up Sebastian's lab partner was what really pushed me over the edge. Admitting that he was squeamish about dissection? That couldn't have been any cuter. And those lyrics. I read those lines and took one more look at his eyes and that was it. I was head-over-heels for him. For her, I mean. But that fact continued to escape me and everyone else as well.

"Trust me, you're not my type." I almost have to laugh, remembering that. Of course I'm not _Viola's_ type. That didn't matter at the time, though. I was falling for Sebastian, and falling hard, even if I wasn't doing anything but sitting at a lab table with him. And to hear that I'm not his type, and on top of that he thinks I should go out with Duke (Orsino? Are you kidding?), after I had done nothing but moon about him for days…it was quite a shock. It was so shocking that I abandoned all decorum and flat out asked him why I wasn't his type, right there over the frog's dead body. _He doesn't think of me that way. Why not?_ The small admission that I was one of few people Sebastian actually felt comfortable with was a small ray of hope that, in the end, contributed to the disaster that happened next.

I still feel awful about using Duke. It was such an excruciatingly embarrassing experience for everyone, except for possibly Eunice. I think she was psyched to be there at all. It didn't matter that it was awkward as hell and ended horribly. I can't imagine how Viola must have felt, sitting there watching me grope Duke. No wonder she tried so hard to convince me that Duke was undateable. The conversation in the bathroom should have been the hint I needed. How would Viola know that I had gone out with Duke Orsino on one date that didn't last more than twenty minutes? At the time, I didn't know that she and Sebastian were related, but it didn't seem to matter. I had faith in the high school rumor mill when I should have been suspicious of Viola's intimate knowledge of the situation.

That was another moment where I can't really imagine how she must have felt. I described in detail how I felt about Sebastian (about _her_ ) and how his ( _her_ ) smile made me feel and the lengths I had gone to with Duke trying to make Sebastian ( _Viola_ ) jealous. She stood there and listened, and I did manage to pick up on the total change in the tone of the conversation. I've been dying to ask her what the whole exchange, minus the fight afterwards, of course, made her think. As soon as the words "huge thing for his roommate Sebastian" left my mouth, how did she feel? Relieved that I didn't actually want Duke? Scared of how this might affect her? Uncomfortable with me? Why did she encourage me to tell Sebastian how I felt when she knew I would only be telling _her_? Sure, it would eliminate Duke from my radar screen and thus free him up for her, but she already knew that I didn't have any real designs on him. We really must have a discussion about this someday when I get up the guts to ask her about it. Which will probably be never.

If spending quality time with Viola didn't clue me in, then kissing the real Sebastian really should have. In hindsight, I can see how different Sebastian and Viola were and still are. Besides the obvious male-female discrepancies that could have been apparent to me if I'd allowed myself to really look at him, Sebastian (the real one) was more confident, more rough around the edges, and his lips didn't feel he way I had imagined they would feel. When I brushed my face against his, his skin didn't feel as soft and smooth as it had looked in all the times when I would stare at Sebastian and fantasize about what it would be like to cover his delicate face with kisses and run my hands through his hair. There was a harsher feel to his body than I had expected, and I admit to feeling just a tiny bit disappointed that he didn't wrap an arm around me or put a hand on my waist. Even so, none of that could dampen my spirits or the euphoria I felt when I believed I was kissing him, my Sebastian, and finally telling him how I felt. My heart was pounding harder at that moment than it ever had during the run I'd just finished before I saw him get out of the cab. I thought I might be able to fly back to my room. I didn't sleep at all that night. I did nothing but think about Sebastian, but it was Viola's face that I saw, not her brother's. I just didn't know that yet.

The very first time I thought something might be off about Sebastian was at the Cornwall-Illyria game when Principal Gold announced that Sebastian Hastings was, in fact, a girl. There was a wave of confusion followed by a brief flash of utter panic before I reined it in and vehemently insisted to myself that Gold was crazy and always had been. Hearing Sebastian say into the megaphone that he was definitely a boy helped calm the painful twisting that was beginning in my stomach. _Does his voice sound deeper than usual? It must be the megaphone_ , I told myself. Then Sebastian dropped his pants, and all doubt about his sex was erased. Yep, definitely male. Then why did I still feel like something wasn't quite right? Maybe it was because Sebastian was playing so horribly, or maybe it was the way he moved that was so _not_ Sebastian. The awful feeling in my stomach was a little better, but it was still there.

Halftime came and went, and they were back on the field. Sebastian was back, too. And he was playing so much better. He walked the walk I knew so well, and carried himself with the air that I could recognize even sitting so far away in the stands. The allure that grabbed hold of me somewhere very deep and pulled me toward him was back. My relief at seeing him as his old self again was so great that I had to sit down for a minute. The game went on, and I cheered along with everyone else around me.

Then there was the brawl. Boys can be so stupid, honestly. But that's not the point. The point is that Sebastian wasn't joining in. Oh, he was in the middle of it alright, but I never saw him throw a punch or tackle someone to the ground. He looked upset, but I couldn't tell very well from where I was sitting, so I got up and ran down to the field. Yes, ran. If something was wrong with Sebastian, I wanted to be there to help figure it out. Plus, I was dying to see him again after the kiss the night before.

So when Sebastian looked at me like I was the last person on Earth that he wanted to see and said "Not now, Olivia!" it stung. Duke was immediately pissed off, and I worried that he might start a fight with Sebastian over, well, me. Sebastian began to blurt things about not betraying Duke and that there was nothing going on between him and me. This was news to me. I was just about to say something when all hell broke loose.

"I love you," Viola said to Duke. My very, very first thought was: _No wonder he said I'm not his type. Sebastian is gay._ Apparently, that was Duke's first thought, too. Sometimes I wish it could have been that simple. It certainly would have made things easier for me. If not easier, then slightly less screwed up, but it definitely wasn't that simple. Viola began to explain about the Cornwall girls' team being cut and reached up to pull off her false sideburns and eyebrows. As soon as that first sideburn came off, my stomach just about fell into my feet. There it was, the truth. The other sideburn was followed by the eyebrows and finally the wig itself. When Duke still needed convincing, Viola followed in her brother's footsteps and flashed us all. _Hello, Viola._ And just like that, Sebastian was Viola. Viola, the same person who helped me fight off Monique in a bathroom mere hours before, was now standing where Sebastian had been thirty seconds ago, and she had been pretending to be her brother the entire time. It was the real Sebastian, the _male_ Sebastian, that I had kissed. _Oh my god, oh my god…he's a girl. She's…a girl. A girl._ It began like a mantra in my head. Just as I feared I might lose my mind and my lunch all at once, rational thought kicked back in.

"Wait, if I kissed your brother, where is he?" A few moments and a few odd comments from Principal Gold later, someone said "present!" over my shoulder, and there he was. The resemblance to Viola was unsettling. She looked enough like her brother that she had fooled everybody, including me. While Viola tried to convince Duke that she hadn't meant to hurt him, I studied Sebastian from of the corner of my eye. He was cute and a little taller than Viola. It dawned on me that those were _his_ lyrics, not his sister's. He seemed like a nice guy, and if the song he wrote was any indication, he was also very talented. I found myself backpedaling from the edge of complete and total panic, gazing at Sebastian and thinking that this might work out after all. I began to understand exactly why Viola had done it, looking at her face when Duke said she should play. She didn't mean to hurt anyone; she desperately wanted to play soccer, and this was the only way.

Honestly, I wasn't angry. I was still a bit shell-shocked from all of it, but survival instincts had kicked in and buried all the messed up, awkward complications that resulted from learning The Truth, and I was left feeling only surprise, sympathy for Viola, and hope that things with Sebastian would turn out nicely. Hell, we'd already kissed, so that was out of the way. For the sake of my sanity and Viola's, I decided that we should continue being friends. It didn't need to matter that I believed she was a guy for two weeks or that I had pretty much fallen in love with her while she was in disguise. We tacitly agreed to put it away and never bring it up again. She introduced me properly to Sebastian, and I was happy to meet him. I was happy to be a supportive friend when it seemed like Duke wouldn't come to the debutante ball for Viola. I was happy to be on Sebastian's arm. I was happy to let Viola take my hands and tell me I looked beautiful. I was happy. We are all friends now, and Duke and Viola are together, and Sebastian and I are dating, and I am so happy. I _am_.

Or at least that's what I keep telling myself.


	2. Chapter 2

_At least Maria isn't here to see this_ , I thought as I paced up and down the length of our room at Illyria. I had the phone receiver in my hand, and I was gripping it so hard, my fingers were starting to ache. I'm sure I must have looked pretty stupid, fidgeting and acting like an idiot over a phone call. Maria was gone at a study group meeting and wouldn't be back for hours, so now was the time to make this call, but I was seriously considering chickening out. The silliest part about it was that it wasn't the talking on the phone that worried me; it was the particular topic of conversation.

Finally, I willed my fingers to dial the number and pressed the receiver against my ear. _Don't pick up, don't pick up—_

_"Hello?"_

There was a momentary silence on my end as I contemplated being a coward and hanging up. Eventually, courage, or perhaps desperation, won out.

"Paul? It's Olivia."

_"Hey, Liv, what's happening?"_

"Not much, just hanging around in my dorm room."

_"How're those highlights doing, by the way? Still beautiful, or do I need to give them some attention?"_

"Oh, my hair is great, but, uh, I need to talk to you about…something," I stammered, loathing the fact that my voice was shaking.

Paul astutely caught on to the serious turn the conversation had taken. _"Are you okay, Olivia?"_

"Yeah…well, no. I don't know. Maybe."

_"Do not move a thing, I am coming over there right now."_ And Paul hung up.

I turned the phone off, sat down on the edge of my bed, and waited. I took deep breaths and tried not to focus on how ill I felt. Just as I got myself mostly calmed down, the phone rang. _It's probably Paul._ I pushed the button to answer the phone, wondering if Paul had changed his mind about getting in the middle of my problems.

"Paul?"

_"Huh? No, Olivia, it's Viola."_

A great lurch in my stomach region. "Wha—oh, uh, hey Vi. What's up?"

_"Oh, nothing. Kia, Yvonne, and I are gonna go out and get crazy, that's all. Wanna come?"_

I froze. _Find an excuse,_ any _excuse!_ "Aw, thanks for the invite, Vi, but I have a really big test this week and I have to study—"

_"Come on, Liv. Clearly you'd rather hang out us than with a stack of books. Just for a little while, okay?"_

"I really can't, Viola. In fact, I have to go, so I'll talk to you later, okay?"

She hesitated and sounded a little surprised and hurt by my abruptness. _"Oh—okay. Bye then."_

I hung up and resisted the urge to whack myself over the head with the receiver.

A little while later, there was a knock on my door, and it was a grim-faced Paul. He had a box of tissues under one arm and a box of chocolate under the other.

"Hi," I said weakly, ushering him into the room with a wave of my hand.

"Ooh, your hair does look great," he remarked, stepping in and handing me the chocolates on his way past me. Placing the tissues on my bed, he plopped down on Maria's bed and turned to look expectantly at me. "Spill."

Inhaling deeply, I sat across from him and tried to decide how to proceed. A certain measure of tact was required for the kind of confession I was about to make. Again the notion of changing my mind and keeping my mouth shut surfaced. _Is it even worth it?_

_Yes it is._

Sighing, I looked at Paul with a rather pathetic expression on my face. "I really appreciate you coming here to talk to me, Paul. You're probably wondering why I called you and not—someone else. Like my boyfriend, for example."

Paul gave me a kind and knowing little smile. "I figured you wanted to talk to me because you can't talk to anyone else who's close to you, because what's bothering you has something to do with them. Does that hit pretty near the target?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding. I shifted to a different sitting position, trying to stall. _Oh, enough already._ I looked Paul squarely in the eyes. "I think I have to break up with Sebastian."

Paul looked mildly surprised, but not that shocked. "Why? I thought things were going well with you two."

"Oh, they are. Mostly. Lately, I've discovered that—" I stopped, feeling awful about what I was about to say. "That my heart's not in it."

"Is there someone else?" Paul said in such a gentle and disarming way that I felt for a moment that he already knew everything I would say and was asking the questions that would help me express it.

I nodded, finding a spot on the carpet to focus on. "You know, I tried really hard not to be affected by…what happened. I decided to grab the silver lining and forget about everything else. Sebastian was a great silver lining, and it worked really well for a little while. But now, no matter how often I tell myself to snap out of it, it doesn't seem to do the job."

I felt rather than saw all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place for Paul. He exhaled slowly and didn't say anything for a little while.

"So this is why you've been avoiding her lately." My head snapped up as I looked sharply at him. We both knew exactly which 'her' he was referring to.

"Avoiding? I haven't been—did she say that?" I asked, feeling a sudden swell of anxiety.

"No, not in those words. She does know that something's up, though. She asked me yesterday if I knew anything was wrong. With you, I mean. She says you aren't around as much as you used to be."

I opened my mouth and tried to form words. I was unsuccessful. She was totally onto me. I had hoped to subtly avoid having too much contact with her over the last few weeks, but apparently stealth was not one of my talents. This was quickly becoming a huge mess, and I could only see it getting bigger and messier.

"I tried not to be obvious about it," I finally managed to say. "Guess that's a big, fat 'F' for me in being inconspicuous. Sebastian probably knows something is wrong, too."

"I'd say that's a good bet."

I felt a lump form in my throat. I did everything I could to force the image of her face, _both_ of her faces, from my mind, but it was useless. "It's getting so hard to be around her. She'll make a joke or say something that completely reminds me of—or she'll smile at me with that _smile_ , and I'll almost have a heart attack." I lost my voice just then. I swallowed a couple times and still couldn't get past the lump. "I've never been in a situation like this before. I'm really not sure what to do."

Paul was thoughtful. "Olivia, I think we all learned from the soccer-themed fiasco a few months ago that honesty is the best policy. If you know things are over with Sebastian, then let them be over. I know you care about the boy enough to not lead him on. And as much as it scares you, I think you should tell her the truth. Otherwise, she might start to think you don't want to be her friend because you don't like her, and I don't think hurting her feelings is quite what you're aiming for. If it means you can't be friends anymore, then maybe that's how all of this was supposed to work out."

I nodded and blinked away a tear. Defeated and resigned to my fate, I opened the box of chocolates and ate one. _This sucks._

\----------------------

Sebastian stared at me, dumbstruck. It only took a second for the hurt to creep into his eyes. "But…why? Did I do something wrong? Is it the band? What—"

"No, you didn't do anything wrong, I promise," I said, feeling sick to my stomach. "You are…a wonderful, talented, caring, amazing guy, and I was lucky to be with you, Sebastian. Any girl would be lucky."

"Then why are you breaking up with me?" he asked, confusion mixing with the pain in his voice. The look he gave me then brought tears to my eyes. When he spoke again, it was just above a whisper. "You're my dream girl."

_I am_ such _an idiot. I must be the stupidest girl on the planet for doing this._ I couldn't find air enough to speak, so I just shook my head. And right then, I hated her for doing this to me and to Sebastian, and I hated myself for hating her. I wanted more than anything to go back to the way it was, with all of us friends and happy for each other, wanted it so bad that it made my chest ache. If only I could return to that blissful state of denial, then Sebastian wouldn't be heartbroken right now.

"I think I deserve an explanation," he said softly, calmly, but with a strong undercurrent of pain that stabbed at my heart. "Even a half-explanation would be good."

I blinked, and two tears fell from my eyes. "I'm so sorry. I don't want you to hate me, but…" I stopped to breathe. "I'm sort of in love with your sister."

_Stupidest girl on the planet. I really am._


	3. Chapter 3

Alarm clocks sound like death at seven o'clock the morning after you break up with your boyfriend. At least mine sure did. I swung an arm at the terrible screeching sound and clumsily connected with the off button. My eyes were still a little swollen from all the crying, and that made them very difficult to open. I wanted to pull the down comforter over my head and stay there in the soothing dark for the rest of my life. School was the last place I wanted to go today, the day after I told Sebastian that I couldn't see him anymore because I had accidentally fallen in love with his sister and couldn't figure out how to undo it. Sebastian might be in school. Viola would most likely be in school. Even Duke would probably be in school, and I wanted to see none of those people today. Oddly enough, Eunice was one of few people I didn't dread seeing at school today. And I felt okay about my roommate Maria, of course, who was now poking me in the arm to make me get out of bed. She remained relatively oblivious to the whole situation.

I sighed and forced my eyes to open. _School it is._

As I trudged past the principal's office later that morning with some books clutched close to my chest, I swallowed back down the memory of how someone made me drop all those books a few months before. _Someone._

I neared my biology class and felt a visceral anxiety that threatened the stability of my digestive system. This was the class Sebastian, Duke, and I had together. Even though Viola (as Sebastian) had been my lab partner for the first two weeks of school, Sebastian was the twin that technically belonged in second period biology, so he was now my lab partner. Viola had a whole new schedule when she officially transferred in from Cornwall, so now I had no classes with her. I was beyond grateful for that particular stroke of luck today.

I prayed that Sebastian would choose today to bail from school. Sitting across from him for an hour while a teacher droned on about the mechanics of pollination was not a good idea. Not after what happened yesterday. I knew him well enough to know that he needed some space, and I was glad to give it to him. Remembering his stunned expression when I told him why I needed to break up with him was enough to make me shudder. I wanted him to yell, swear, throw something, be angry that I was ending it because of my feelings for Viola, anything but what he actually did, which was absolutely nothing. I told him the truth, and he stared at me quietly for a little while. Then he said he had to go, and he left. I sat down and cried for an hour. Everything had become so hopelessly screwed up.

Somehow, I stopped breathing as I entered the classroom. I didn't remember to take a breath until I saw that Sebastian's chair across from mine was empty. I was safe for now. Practically collapsing into my seat, I did my best to avoid Malcolm's simpering face to my right. I smiled at Eunice, who waved. Then she went back to making goo-goo eyes at Toby. At first glance, Toby and Eunice are the most bizarre pairing you can conceive of. The ironic part is that they turned out to be the least dysfunctional couple of all. Lucky them.

I felt someone brush past me and looked up to see Duke's broad back as he walked to his lab table with Eunice. _Duke._ Guilt like I couldn't remember feeling before this year began filled my insides. First I used him shamelessly to make another guy (didn't really matter that she wasn't actually a guy) jealous, and now I had feelings for his girlfriend. I had zero intentions of 'making a move' or anything like that, but the mere existence of those feelings was enough to make me feel like I was hurting him somehow.

I realized that I had given Paul the impression that I would tell Viola the truth, but I was having some serious second thoughts. After Sebastian's reaction yesterday, I gave in to the desire to keep it to myself. Watching Duke sit and make awkward small talk with Eunice only strengthened my resolve not to open my big mouth again. _Oh my god, Sebastian!_ I suddenly thought. _What if he tells Viola? I might as well leave the country right now._ The terror over the idea that Viola might, at this moment, know my secret was unbearable. I must have turned an unfortunate shade of grey because I saw Malcolm lean toward me, passionate concern all over his face.

I managed a weak smile and tried to get a grip. _Think._ I reasoned that Sebastian probably wouldn't tell anyone that his girlfriend dumped him because she has a thing for his own sister, let alone tell Viola herself. He most likely already felt bad enough without including someone else in his humiliation. Though I was momentarily comforted with this rationalization, it didn't last long. I felt Sebastian's pain all over again, and I wanted to cry some more. I settled for resting my forehead against my hand and closing my eyes.

I hardly paid attention to whatever lesson was happening around me. Twice during the hour, Duke caught my eye and gave me a friendly smile. Each time, I felt guiltier than before. Oddly enough, Duke and I had come through this thing as friends. I wondered if he would believe me if I got up in the middle of class and told him the truth. Maybe, maybe not. He might not be able to get past the irony of the situation; before, he suspected Viola (as Sebastian) of betraying him with me. Now, I was betraying him with Viola, or that's how it seemed.

The bell finally rang, and I could not have been grateful enough. I grabbed my books and my bag and made for the door as quickly as possible without looking too much like I was sprinting to get away. Sadly for me, Duke's legs were longer than mine, and it didn't take him long to catch up with me in the hall.

"Hey, Olivia!" he called out as he drew level with me.

I swallowed. "Hey, Duke." I smiled in what I hoped was a normal way.

"Listen, a bunch of us going to the All-American Rejects concert this Saturday. You definitely need to be there," he said, poking me lightly in the shoulder.

"Uh, who all is going?" I asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

"Me, Viola, Andrew, Toby, Eunice, Kia, Paul—everybody. Except for Sebastian, since he has band practice and can't tear himself away, but you probably know that, huh?"

I briefly contemplated informing Duke that Sebastian and I weren't together anymore, but that might lead to lots of sticky questions and even stickier answers about the reasons why. Duke took my silence for indecision and pressed me further.

"Come on, you can hang out with us for one night without your boyfriend," he said in his best persuasion voice.

"I don't know—"

"Come on! Besides, Viola said you've been busy lately, and she misses you. We all do," he added politely.

_Just do it._ "Okay, cool. When and where?" I asked, smiling as brightly as possible.

"Dinner at Cesario's at seven, then we'll go to the concert." The bell rang again, and he checked his watch. "I gotta get to class, but I'll see you, okay?"

"Okay. Bye, Duke." I smiled and waved. Duke disappeared into a classroom, and I booked it to study hall. My insides were knotting themselves into oblivion. A whole evening with Viola? And Duke? There was no way that I, in my current state of emotional turmoil, was going to be able to revert back to the old 'denial Olivia' for an entire night. I could practically foresee the imminent catastrophe. There would be arguments, tears, and it might even come to blows. Between whom, I didn't want to think about. But it was too late to take it back now.

It was terrible to think and even more terrible to admit, but as I shuffled into study hall, I caught myself wishing that I had never met Viola or Sebastian Hastings at all. At least then none of us would be in the middle of this disaster.

\---------------------------

Every five seconds or so, I looked at my phone, worrying that it would ring any second and that it would be Sebastian, my now ex-boyfriend, or worse, his sister. It never rang.

I broke up with Sebastian on Tuesday. It was now Saturday, and I was getting ready to go to Cesario's so I could meet my friends. It was Saturday, and Sebastian hadn't said a word to me since Tuesday. As far as I could tell, he hadn't even been in school. Even though I was somewhat relieved to not have to see him, I was starting to worry about how this might affect his academic status. I wanted him to go to school, and I wanted to resolve our very unfinished business. But I didn't want him to call me. Not yet.

I put the finishing touches on my mascara and fiddled with my hair some more.

"Who are you trying to impress?" I muttered to myself. Then I remembered who it was. _Oh. Right. Her._

The nerves fluttered around in my stomach again. I found the idea of having anything to eat at Cesario's amusing. In my current state of anxiety, it was highly unlikely that I would be able to keep anything down. It would be strictly water and maybe a breadstick for me tonight.

It was 6:47. Time to go. I glanced at my phone again. It still didn't ring, and for some reason that fact instilled me with just the tiniest bit of confidence that I could get through this evening without completely falling apart at the seams. Then there was a knock on my door.

My heart jumped into my throat, and I had visions of an angry Sebastian storming in, screaming profanities. Reluctantly, I tiptoed to the door and took hold of the handle with trembling fingers. _Stop being such a nervous wreck, Olivia. It's probably just one of the girls from across the hall wanting to borrow something. Grow a pair, for god's sake._

I finally opened the door and smiled, expecting to see one of my neighbors. Instead, I was looking into the beautiful face of Viola Hastings, and she was grinning the grin that made me go weak in the knees. I was all I could do not to pass out right there in the doorway.

This was going to be a very, very long night.


	4. Chapter 4

I think I was cool once, a long time ago. I had lots of friends, I had great fashion sense, and I was widely regarded as being fairly attractive. I don't acknowledge this out of conceit. It's just…true. I used to be pretty put together all the time; I was very in control of my life and my destiny. I remember what that felt like.

So now, with Viola standing in my doorway, flashing that smile at me, I did everything I could to tap back into the cool and confident Olivia of old. To my great surprise and relief, it worked. How long I could keep it up was another story, but I didn't have energy left to worry about that. I concentrated on being the socially masterful girl I knew was still in there somewhere underneath all the tension, nerves, and self-loathing.

"Uh, hey Vi. I was just on my way to meet you guys at Cesario's. What's going on?" I asked very casually and smiling my little head off.

"Oh, nothing. We decided to kidnap you and drive you to dinner and the concert with us in case you suddenly remembered that you had to study, or alphabetize your CD collection or—or wash your hair or something, and not come after all," she said very matter-of-factly.

"What, am I riding in the trunk? Will there be a gag involved?" As long as Viola was joking around, so would I.

She playfully narrowed her eyes at me. "Not if you come quietly."

"Then by all means, let's go," I said, grabbing my purse and stepping out into the hall. As I shut the door behind me, I couldn't help but think of it like the lid of a coffin closing. After tonight, my friendship with Viola was probably dead, and this concert was the last nail.

While I silently fretted about the odds of my having a breakdown by the end of the night, Viola dug into her purse and pulled out a strip of paper.

"Here," she said, holding the thick cardstock paper out to me as we headed for the dorm exit and Duke's waiting car outside. "Your ticket."

"I can pay you back tomorrow, okay?" I said, taking the doomsday ticket and depositing it in my purse.

"Pfft, don't even worry about it." She opened the door for me, and we made our way down the steps of my building. "This came from my dad's monthly 'I'm sorry my relationship with your mother is so screwed up' stipend. There's waaay more where that came from, seeing as he and my mother aren't planning to be normal anytime soon."

"Yeah, what's up with your parents? Aren't they still divorced?"

"Of course," she replied flatly, again opening a door for me as I got into the backseat of Duke's car. Duke smiled hello at me over his shoulder. I smiled back. Viola got in the passenger seat and continued trying to explain her parents' bizarre relationship. "They just go out sometimes, and have, ahem, sleepovers—" and here she made air quotes with her fingers, "at each other's houses. But they're not officially back together."

"Weird," I said, shaking my head in genuine disbelief. Viola and Sebastian did have some really strange parents.

The rest of the car ride was pretty uneventful. Duke and Viola got involved in a heated discussion of some unfair yellow card at a recent soccer game. I used to go to every game to cheer them on. I had several friends on the team, and soccer was fun to watch. Sebastian sometimes came with me, and sometimes didn't, usually when his band had a gig or some important emergency practice session. Regardless, I enjoyed myself at the games. That is, I enjoyed myself until I realized that I was going to the games less to cheer for Duke, Toby, and Andrew and more to cheer for Viola. So I stopped going altogether.

As I covertly watched Viola rattle off some obscure soccer statistic to Duke, I wondered if she had noticed my absence in recent weeks. Various people had made it clear to me that Viola noticed my general avoidance of her, but it hadn't occurred to me before now that she might also have seen that I no longer attended the soccer games. _Her_ soccer games. I felt a pang of fear that I might have already hurt her feelings pretty badly. My mind instantly rewound to the comment she made only minutes earlier, that she was afraid I wouldn't come tonight. That's why she showed up at my room. She really thought I might back out. Viola was pretty good at masking her feelings; she'd proven this to all of us by successfully pretending to be her brother for two weeks. The possibility that she was more upset than she let on began to gnaw at me.

Toby and Eunice already had a table at Cesario's when we arrived. Andrew, Kia, Paul, and Yvonne arrived minutes after Duke, Viola, and I did, and we all crammed into the booth. By the time Andrew and Kia scooted into the booth seat, I had a horrifying realization. Paul and Yvonne had yet to squish into the seat, and I was already uncomfortably wedged in between Kia and Viola. By the time everyone was seated, my whole left side was pressed firmly up against Viola's right side. I could see Duke making eyes at her in my peripheral vision, and I suddenly felt ill. _Be cool, Olivia. Be cool._ I relaxed a little bit and focused my attention on the people to my right, but I only ordered water. I did not trust my digestive tract this evening.

The topics of conversation covered the things that teenagers usually discuss, and I started to feel safe as the minutes ticked by. _This might be okay_ , I tried to assure myself. Viola finished her slice of pizza before glancing at me and then at my lone glass of water.

"Oh, don't tell me you're torturing yourself with one of those diets," she said despairingly.

"No, no. I don't really feel that great," I replied quite truthfully.

"Well, good. I mean, not good that you don't feel great—good that you're not on some ridiculous diet. Like you would ever need one!" she added in mock annoyance and giving me a quick appraising look that traveled up and down my body. I stifled the shudder that threatened to ripple through my body. Viola was so close right now that she would definitely feel me trembling under her gaze. I settled for rolling my eyes and smiling at her. She smiled back and then turned to Duke, who was trying to get her attention. I felt the now familiar pain flare up in my stomach. Sipping my water, I prayed for time to speed up so the night could end that much sooner.

It didn't. An eternity went by before I was finally able to peel myself away from Viola and put some space between us. The parts of me that had been touching her felt like they were burning (so did my face), either from embarrassment or…something else. Fortunately for me, Paul latched onto me and made me ride in his car instead of Duke's, so at least I had a little time to recover.

As we drove on the freeway, Paul seemed to be itching to ask me something.

"Okay, what?" I finally said, breaking the quiet atmosphere.

"What do you mean, 'what'? Did you—"

"Did I tell her? Would I even be here right now if I had? No, definitely not."

"So…are you going to tell her?"

"No, Paul, I don't think I am. After seeing how Sebastian reacted—"

"You broke up with him."

I sighed, not wanting to relive that conversation right now. "Yes."

"Okay." And that was all Paul said about it. We sat in companionable silence the rest of the way to the arena.

\---------------------------------

"Isn't this awesome?" Andrew yelled in my ear while bouncing up and down like he was on springs.

"Yeah!" I yelled back, but without much enthusiasm. The band was great, of course, and the thousands of people all around me were screaming and dancing and thoroughly enjoying themselves. I, however, was not, and that depressed me. I wanted to have a good time, to sing all the words to "Move Along," my favorite All-American Rejects song, but I was unable to stop thinking about the fact that Duke and Viola were making out in the row behind me. Besides the usual painful turmoil in my stomach, there was a new feeling, a slight burning somewhere underneath all the anxiety. I wrestled with that feeling, trying to figure it out so I could make it go away, but once I discovered exactly what it was, that only made things worse.

Duke was a foot or so behind my right shoulder, and he was kissing the hell out of Viola. And I hated it. I didn't want to see that, see him with his hands all over her. I wanted him to disappear forever. A very quiet voice deep in my heart informed me that this meant that I was jealous of Duke. _Jealous._ Following that epiphany was another one in which I was the one kissing the hell out of Viola, and Duke was nowhere. I shut my eyes and forced that mental image away from me. This is exactly what I didn't want. I never wanted to get in the middle of their relationship. Jealousy seemed like the first step on a very dangerous path, and I felt terrible.

If there is a point of emotional exhaustion that everyone reaches, I reached mine in the middle of the last set of songs. I slipped into a blank numbness, and thought thoughts about nobody.

\---------------------------------

I had hoped that Paul or someone else would drive me home, but Viola grabbed my arm and dragged me to Duke's car. I fully expected them to start in on soccer again as I fumbled with my seatbelt, but Viola turned in her seat to look at me.

She was smiling brightly and didn't seem to pick up on my less than great mood. "That was amazing! They are so—amazing!"

"Very descriptive, Vi," Duke teased as we got onto the freeway. The two of them seemed to forget about me as they began to verbally spar in the front. I watched the headlights of all the cars traveling in the opposite direction. I wanted to be in one of those cars.

I don't know how long I spaced out like that. When Viola brought me back to my senses, I was surprised to find that we were almost back to Illyria.

"Hello? Olivia?"

"Hmm?" I mumbled, staring into Viola's wide blue-green eyes.

"I asked you what you thought about a double date with me and Duke," she said excitedly. "I'm sure we could find an evening when Sebastian isn't writing sensitive rock or tuning his precious guitar."

"Oh, uh—" I sputtered, frantically trying to come up with an excuse, a lie, anything that wouldn't require me to tell Viola I had broken up with her brother. I'd have to eventually, but I was not ready for it right now.

"We could go to a movie," Duke offered from the driver's seat. "Or mini golf. I know that's kinda junior high, but I like mini golf."

"Of course you do, sweetie," Viola said in her best baby talk voice as she reached over and pinched Duke's cheek.

"I don't—" I tried again, but was interrupted.

"We don't have to play mini golf, Liv, I promise," Viola said reassuringly as we pulled up to my dorm. "I think it would be cool to play pool. Sebastian thinks he's some kind of hustler, but he's really, um, not. It's actually very amusing."

"Look, we can't—"

"Make fun of your boyfriend? Yes we can, I have sibling's rights to that." Viola glanced at my dorm as though just realizing we had arrived. "Hey, we're here! And anyway, we'll probably just end up going to Cesario's like always, but I'll ask Sebastian if he has any super cool ideas and when he might be available—"

"No." It was my turn to interrupt. They weren't going to let this go. They would keep at it until I agreed to the double date, and that was impossible. I would have to tell them the truth.

Viola was slightly puzzled. "What, 'no'? No, I shouldn't ask him?"

_Deep breath._

"No, we can't go on a double date with you," I said, doing my best to keep my voice steady. I unbuckled my seatbelt and pulled on the door handle, pursed clutched in my hand, preparing to run for it if necessary.

"Because of Sebastian's schedule, right? I don't care what he says, Olivia, he's not _that_ busy," Viola reassured me.

"No, not because of that." I paused to breathe once more. "Because…Sebastian and I broke up this week."

Viola was dumbstruck, and Duke's head snapped around to look at me so fast that I heard his neck crack. Before either one of them could say anything, I bolted from the car and ran as fast as I could for the safety of my room.

Just as I stepped inside the main entrance to the building, I heard the distinct sound of quick footsteps behind me, and the person who belonged to those footsteps was wearing heels.

_Something tells me it's not Duke._


	5. Chapter 5

My room, my inner sanctum. I was almost there. The keys were in the lock, but I could practically feel in my bones that she was coming after me. The door was open, and I was in. I was ready to breathe again just as Viola practically threw herself against the door to keep me from closing it. I stumbled back as she came all the way in and shut the door behind her. I could only stare at her, waiting. I knew she was going to say something, and I was too exhausted to try and be conversational, so she would have to speak first.

It took her a little while to come up with words. Her expression was a mess of concern, surprise, and confusion. I probably looked like a deer in the headlights: paralyzed and terrified.

"Just—" she began slowly. "Just so we're clear, I did just hear you say that you and my brother broke up, right? I didn't hallucinate that?"

I nodded and thought about sitting down for this, but my feet were cemented to the floor.

"Okay. So…who broke up with whom?" she asked tentatively.

I cleared my throat. "I broke up with Sebastian."

That was definitely not the answer she had expected. She seemed even more confused now than before.

"But—why? Did he do something stupid? Because I wouldn't put it past him to—"

"No, he didn't. He didn't do anything."

The confusion gave way to utter dismay. "Then why? You guys seemed so perfect, you know? Sebastian was so happy, and I thought…I thought things were going really well for you two."

I exhaled slowly and sank into my desk chair. "They were," I said quietly.

Viola could see how upset I was and stepped closer. "Olivia…are you sure he didn't do anything? If he did, I promise he'll regret it."

"No, Viola. Sebastian has been great, really great." I found a dent in the wall to look at instead of Viola's face. "It just wasn't right for me anymore."

She was silent for a moment, as though she was weighing something in her mind. "Are you sure that's all?"

"Yes," I lied, and she knew it. I cursed myself for being such a crappy liar under pressure.

Her frustration was mounting now, and she put a hand on her hip. "Why can't you tell me the truth? I know there's more to this that you're not saying." She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was soft and masking a slight undercurrent of bitterness. "What's wrong with you lately? First you avoid me like I'm diseased, and now you break up with Sebastian and won't even talk to me about it? I don't get it, Liv. Are you breaking up with both of us now?"

My mind was tearing itself in two over how to answer her. I could tell her the truth, the whole truth, and lose her forever, or I could lie even more and still lose her forever. Both choices were unacceptable. I was still fumbling around for some kind of response when I remembered Duke. I seized the opportunity to stall. That was a big mistake.

"Is Duke still waiting in his car? Shouldn't you—"

"Fine. That's fine. Change the subject." She was getting angry now. She threw her hands in the air and let them fall limply against her sides. "I thought I could get us back on track with this concert, you know. Having fun like old times, but you practically ignored me all night, and now you drop this bomb on me and won't even explain anything! But whatever. If you don't want to be around me or have any meaningful interaction, I can take a hint."

She turned on her heel and reached for the door. "Oh, and since you're so concerned about Duke, I told him to go home because I thought this might take a while. How silly of me."

Her hand closed around the door handle, and I knew that if she left this room, we would never be friends again. Pure panic welled up inside me, and I couldn't let her go.

"Wait!" I nearly shouted as I leapt out of my seat, desperate to keep her here. Viola didn't let go of the handle, but she didn't turn it either. She slowly looked at me, the hurt she had obviously been feeling for a while now plain on her face.

"Don't go," I said tremulously.

Viola's shoulders sagged a little, and her eyes pleaded with me. "Please, please tell me what's been going on, Olivia. We're still friends, right? You can talk to me."

I nodded and swallowed hard. _Just do it. Open your mouth and say it._ I suddenly felt cold and clammy all over, and a weight like a stone had settled in my stomach. "Your brother… He's amazing, and very cute, and it was so easy to like him at first." I could barely speak above a whisper now, and I was mad at myself for the tears that had begun blurring my vision. "Everything was so messed up, and he was there and so perfect, and those were his lyrics, so I just thought—I thought why not? And it worked for a long time, but lately I've realized that—that no matter how great Sebastian is…"

Viola was staring warily at me while I searched for my voice. I was probably making no sense at all, but it was too late to go back and explain more. I had opened the floodgates, and there was no stopping now.

"No matter how great Sebastian is…" I began again, one tear sliding down my cheek. Viola watched me with wide eyes, and I surprised myself by looking fully into those eyes. "He's not you."

Viola blinked. "What?"

"He's not you, Viola," I repeated softly.

Her hand fell slowly from the door handle, like she had completely forgotten it existed and all the muscles simply went slack. Her mouth was sort of hanging open, as though she'd forgotten about it, too. I could see the rise and fall of her chest speed up slightly and become more erratic; she was getting nervous. _That makes two of us, Vi._

"Wait, wait," she struggled to say. "What—what do you, what does _that_ …what does that mean?"

Sick with anxiety, I helplessly held up my hands, waiting for a sentence to form in my mind. Viola didn't wait for me to speak, though, and forged ahead without me.

"This doesn't make any sense. You like my brother, Sebastian. You don't—you don't like _me_ —" she said, playing it off like it was some kind of joke. "Do you?"

I nodded very slowly, and for the second time that night, I worried about fainting in front of her.

"But why? How, for that matter? I didn't think you, uh, swung that way," she said with a nervous half smile, and I could tell that denial was causing her to start rationalizing the whole issue. "You're probably just confused, and—and worried about things with you and Sebastian, that's all."

All light-headedness vanished as an unfamiliar indignance took its place. She was scared, and she wanted this to disappear, but I was tired of bending over backwards to make it go away. I'd been doing that since I first found out that "Sebastian" was really Viola, a girl, and I was too goddamn tired of it to go back to it now. It was her fault that we were both in this position to begin with, and I wasn't going to keep my mouth shut just so she wouldn't feel uncomfortable. My jaw tightened, and my forehead wrinkled into an angry frown.

"God, Viola, you are unbelievable. You should know exactly why this happened. No, I don't 'swing that way', but that's really not the point. The point is that I thought you were a guy for two weeks, and I fell for that guy."

"And I apologized for that, like, seven thousand times!"

"To Duke! To the soccer team! To Illyria! I don't remember you ever telling me that you were sorry for lying to me, or being at all concerned about the lingering effects the whole thing might have had on me."

"Well, I—I'm sorry, Olivia, but I didn't think you wanted to talk about it. I mean, I thought we kind of mutually decided to pretend that you having a thing for me never happened. You liked my brother, remember?"

"But I liked you first! By the time I found out the truth, it was too late. I did my best to transfer all those feelings to your brother because he was nice and it was awkward thinking of you, Viola the girl, in that way, and also because you were completely into Duke. You wanted to be friends and so did I, so it seemed easier to just be friends, but it got too hard. I practically beat myself over the head with the fact that you're a girl, and I'm not into girls, but it didn't work. The ridiculous truth is that you were the one I had feelings for, and despite my best efforts with Sebastian, it's still you."

Viola looked like I had just thrown a bucket of cold water on her head. "But Olivia, that guy wasn't _me_! I was just pretending to be Sebastian so I could play soccer!"

I rolled my eyes and made an exasperated noise. "Give me a break, Vi. You may have been using Sebastian's name, but I've spent enough time with him to know that you weren't acting anything like your brother. You were being you, but with a silly low voice, a wig, and a couple sideburns." Viola still wanted to object, but I cut her off. "Your sense of humor, the sweet things you say, the way you care about people, the soccer, your face, your eyes, your smile—all of that is the same. It's all you, and I think you know that."

"No!"

I cocked my head to one side and arched an eyebrow at her.

"Okay—maybe. But that doesn't mean that you really like me. Isn't it possible that you just miss the other Sebastian? The one you thought was male?" she asked, careful to keep her tone even and calm.

I considered that for a minute. It certainly was possible. I pictured Viola as Sebastian and then as just Viola in my mind and asked myself the question: if I had to choose between them—? I wrestled with that for a moment or two before realizing that it wasn't even a real question for me. Maybe three months ago I would have chosen "Sebastian" without a second thought, but that was when I could still separate them in my mind like they really were two people. Now, after so much time, it was impossible. They were both Viola; one of them was just wearing a wig.

"How can I miss him when I'm around him all the time?" I asked softly, looking pointedly at Viola. "I used to think that I missed him, that that was why being around you would make me feel so sad, or give me butterflies, or make me want to be closer to you, but I figured out a while ago that it wasn't the memory of him that made me feel that way. It was you, because you're the same. Now, when I think of that Sebastian, I always see and hear and feel…Viola."

Viola staggered slowly backward until she was leaning up against the wall. I watched her closely, and I thought I could see the beginning of tears in her eyes. My anger ebbed away and was replaced by a powerful urge to walk across the room and put my arms around her.

"I don't know what to say," she nearly whispered, looking up at me with glistening blue-green eyes and a weak smile.

A lump the size of a boulder formed in my throat, and I started to find it difficult to breathe.

"No wonder you were avoiding me," she said absently, as though she were talking to herself more than to me. "That really sucked, you know."

"I know," I said, my voice breaking.

She stared at me, stared hard, face contorted with distress. "This could change everything, and I just wonder—how can you be sure? I mean, are you really, really sure about this?"

I barely found breath enough to answer her. "Yes, I'm sure."

"But how can you be sure that you're sure?"

I didn't answer her. I was too busy losing my senses, common sense included. I was moving toward her without really knowing why, and I didn't stop until I was standing right in front of her, mere inches away. She was quite taken aback by this, and I didn't blame her. We were so close that I wondered if she could hear my heart beating, and I was still trying to figure out what the hell I was doing.

"Olivia? What are you—"

She never finished the sentence. Before either of us knew what was happening, I leaned forward and pressed my lips against hers, one hand lightly touching her jaw. I couldn't remember feeling so many emotions at once before. The kiss only lasted three or four seconds, but in that short time I managed to feel nervous, euphoric, guilty, sad, relieved, horrified, excited, shocked, and so angry at myself that I could have exploded. I pulled away from her and stumbled toward the door, one hand over my mouth. _Oh my god, I can't believe I just did that. She'll never talk to me again._

I half expected her to slap me in the face or leave, but she only stood there against the wall, apparently stunned into paralysis.

"I'm sorry," I murmured into the hand that was still covering my mouth. Panic took over completely, and I turned and wrenched the door open. I ran as fast as I could, and only when I burst from the building and into the night air did I remember that I had just left my own room. God only knows when Viola would leave, and there was no way in hell that I could go back there now. Cold, tired, and still in shock, I went to the only place I could think of.

After dodging dorm security, I knocked rapidly on the door to room 234. To my immeasurable relief, the right roommate opened the door. Sebastian stared at me for a moment, too surprised to react. I didn't wait for him to say anything. Exhausted and falling apart, I collapsed into his arms and sobbed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note! There is a perspective shift after the break in this chapter in which Viola takes over the first-person narrative. I know it's a jarring shift, sorry. :/

I didn't even have to open my eyes to know that I was in a bed that wasn't mine in a room that wasn't mine. The sheets weren't as soft as the ones I was used to, and the slight sweaty sock smell definitely wasn't something one would find in my room. This was a boy room, a _very_ boy room.

Sebastian's room.

_Holy shit._

I sat bolt upright, eyes snapping open. I instinctively checked the bed I was in to see if anyone else was there; no one was. It seemed I was alone in Sebastian and Duke's room at--I glanced at the bedside clock--10:51 AM. I threw the covers aside, preparing to get out of there, when I suddenly thought to check that I wasn't in any sort of state of undress. Looking down, I was immensely relieved to find that I was still wearing the jeans and designer t-shirt from the night before. I had slept in my clothes, and from the looks of the empty sleeping bag on the floor next to the bed, I had slept alone. At least I hadn't managed to do two incredibly stupid things in one night.

The moment of reassurance was brief. As soon as I figured out where I was and what I was doing there, the events of the night before came rushing back. Cesario's, the concert, the confession in my room, the kiss…

"Why did I do that?" I muttered to myself, putting my head in my hands.

"Do what?"

Startled, I emitted an odd squeak. Sebastian, standing in the doorway with a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste in his hand, chuckled at me.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," he said kindly, tossing the toothbrush and toothpaste into a drawer.

"It's okay," I said in a small voice, not sure how to proceed after everything I'd done the night before.

"Sleep well?"

"Sebastian, I…"

He sighed and took a seat in his desk chair. "Olivia, I want to say something here, okay?"

I nodded, bracing myself for whatever was coming.

"I want to tell you that I'm…I'm sorry for how I acted after you said you wanted to break up."

"No, Sebastian, don't be sorry—you had every right—"

He put a hand up to silence me and smiled sadly. "Just let me finish. I like you, a lot, and things started out really great between us, but—I knew that something was different these past few weeks. I thought maybe I was too into my music, or there was another guy…"

Gulping, I gripped the edge of the blanket next to me.

"So when you said you couldn't be with me anymore, I wanted to fix it, whatever was wrong. I thought if I just worked at it, everything would be cool and I wouldn't lose you." Sebastian looked away, shaking his head. "But when you said that you're in love with…with Viola—I knew it was really over. That's why I didn't want to see you, and why I just walked out like that. It was too hard to look at you and know that the thing I'd been afraid of since the beginning had finally happened. But I was still an ass for ignoring you."

"Since the beginning?" I asked, unable to stop myself.

He nodded, smiling again, but now it was more than sad. It was sympathetic. "Viola never told me any of the details, but I knew how you felt about, um, Sebastian, before you met me, and there was always this little nagging worry rolling around in my brain that the amazing, hot girl I was with would eventually realize that I wasn't really the person she liked after all."

"Sebastian, you need to know that I really did like you, but…" My voice faltered and broke, and I felt like crying, but there had been far too much of that going on recently, so I held it in.

"Olivia, I get it," he said, and even though he was obviously hurting, there was no bitterness in his words. "You can't help the way you feel—none of us can. Yeah, I could be angry at you and never talk to you again—and honestly, I was tempted—but after last night, there's no way I could still be mad." He paused to give me a look so full of compassion that I would have burst into tears if I weren't focusing all my energy on not crying. "I guess I didn't really understand how much this was hurting you, too."

"I'm so sorry about coming here last night and dumping all this on you—" I blurted unceremoniously, unable to keep it in anymore. "I don't even really remember what I said."

"Well, mostly you just bawled all over my shirt for a really long time. Don't worry, Duke figured it had something to do with our stormy breakup and left to sleep on Toby and Andrew's floor. You sort of said a few things about the concert and about, um, Viola, but again, mostly crying. You seemed really tired and messed up, so I put you to bed. You passed out so fast, it was like you'd had six shots of tequila or something."

Sebastian was really smiling now, and I couldn't help but smile back. "I don't deserve you, Sebastian Hastings."

"No, you really don't," he said, very seriously, before smiling again. We both laughed a little, and I sighed.

"I should probably go back to my dorm. Maria might be wondering where I am."

"Yeah."

There was an awkward silence that hung heavily in the air between us until Sebastian leaned toward me with a cautiously curious expression.

"So…did you really…kiss my sister?" he asked, eyeing me carefully.

My face must have been bright, flaming red, because it felt like every spare drop of blood in my body had rushed there all at once. "Oh my god."

Sebastian's sympathetic smile was back. "Yeah, you said something about that last night in all the crying, and I guess—I guess I just wondered if it was true, and I can see by your reaction that it, uh, is."

"Oh my god," I said again, hiding my face with my hands.

"Olivia." Sebastian stood up and came over to me. He laid a hand on my shoulder. "I won't lie and say that I don't wish we could still be together or that this won't be hard for me, but I…I care about you a lot." He laughed softly to himself. "I can't believe I'm actually going to say this, but I really do hope that we can still be friends."

I forced myself to look up at him. "Really?"

"Really." He took his hand off my shoulder and stepped back a bit. "I would rather be your friend than be nothing to you at all. So, if you need someone to talk to…"

I stood up and gave him a quick hug before starting to look around for my shoes. I spotted them by the door, and when I had them on and had fixed my hair a little so I didn't look as much like a train wreck as I felt, I turned back to Sebastian. He gave me a jaunty look and half a smile.

"Well, if it has to be someone other than me, it might as well be another Hastings. Keep you in the family, and all that."

I wanted to find the right words to leave him with, something to explain all of my mixed up feelings, but the simplest sentiment turned out to be the best. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said, and before he looked away, I thought I saw him blinking away a tear or two.

\----------------------------------

Viola Hastings could not have cared less about the principle of supply and demand. At least not right now. The teacher droned on and on, but she hadn't caught a single word all period. Mondays always dragged horribly, but this was no normal Monday. This was the Monday after the weekend when the world had turned upside down.

Viola was vaguely aware of the bell ringing. Students began pouring out of classrooms and into the hallway. Viola floated along with the current, still lost in her thoughts. Eventually, a familiar pair of strong hands took her by the shoulders and pulled out of the river of humanity. Duke Orsino smiled warmly at her and enfolded her in an embrace.

"Hey, babe," he said, releasing her so they could walk to the cafeteria. "How was econ?"

"Good," she replied absently, knowing full well that she had no idea how econ was. She'd been there in body, but her mind had been very far away from economics. Her mind seemed to have gotten stuck in Saturday night, and no matter how hard she tried wrenching it back into the present, it wouldn't budge.

_Don't think about it._

_Have to. Can't help it._

_Well, then just don't think._

It was lunchtime now anyway, and not thinking should have been easy. One of the side effects of playing for the Illyria boys' soccer team was that most of her friends were jock guys. Hanging with them never seemed to require many brain cells, and she was grateful for that today. Principal Gold handed her the usual apple and sandwich with his usual unnaturally cheery air, and Viola felt hard pressed not to think. Principal Gold's face led her brain down a certain lane in her memory, a lane that ended in front of his office with Viola picking up scattered schoolbooks that belonged to—

_Stop thinking._

She plopped into a seat between Duke and Andrew at their normal lunch table. The guys were already engaged in a lively conversation about which soccer referee was the most ugly. Viola laughed at Toby's joke about an unfortunately placed mole on one ref's face. She felt better already, more relaxed. Ugly referees and facial blemishes would get her through this. The conversation soon disintegrated into a minor belching contest that began to try Viola's patience. She loved these boys to death, especially Duke, but sometimes their intense testosterone levels made her long for a little estrogen to balance everything out. She had Kia and Yvonne, but they still went to Cornwall and weren't around all the time. The only female friends she really had at Illyria were Eunice and—

_You're thinking again._

Tempting fate, Viola swept the cafeteria with her eyes. She pretended that she wasn't looking for anyone in particular, but she was. She caught sight of Malcolm, acting as much like an idiot as ever, but the person who would normally be in Malcolm's general vicinity at any given time (the person Viola was not actually looking for, of course), wasn't anywhere to be seen. Viola breathed a sigh of relief and tried to get back into whatever was happening with the boys at her table, but her mind had anchored itself to Saturday night again. She sensed that it was a losing battle, and she might as well think it out and get it overwith.

_How did I not see this coming?_

Viola laughed bitterly, realizing how naïve she'd been to think that simply revealing herself as a girl would make any awkward complications disappear. She was reminded of the conversation in the bathroom with—

_Oh hell, just think about her and stop being such a coward._

With Olivia. When Olivia had expressed her feelings for "Sebastian." Viola was completely caught off guard by that, but she shouldn't have been. As a girl, Viola should have known exactly what Olivia was really doing when she asked Duke out. She should have picked up on all the signals Olivia was broadcasting loud and clear in Viola's direction during those two weeks. Viola had noticed Olivia watching her when she thought "Sebastian" wasn't looking, she understood that Olivia had indeed "given her the nod." She listened carefully when Olivia disappointedly asked why she wasn't "Sebastian's" type. She heard Olivia's cute little giggle whenever "Sebastian" said something funny. The setup with Duke to make "Sebastian" jealous should have been as obvious as a neon sign in a dark room, but Viola had been clueless. All the little signs and signals coming from Olivia had not gone unnoticed, but they simply hadn't stuck in Viola's mind as being important. Viola was so wrapped up in her own personal mess that she hadn't processed the information available to her, and she paid for it with the shock she got in that bathroom.

She paid for that same naïveté again on Saturday night. Viola felt an impulse to smack herself on the forehead, but remembered that she was in the cafeteria, surrounded by people who had no idea what was happening in her head. She reluctantly went back into the memory of Saturday, turning everything over in her mind.

_Olivia likes me._

Even thinking that sentence frightened her. And made her intensely angry with herself for being such an idiot. She should have been more considerate of Olivia's feelings in all of this. Olivia was right; Viola never truly apologized for her big lie. She had assumed that her brother Sebastian's presence would heal any wounds instantly, and Olivia and the real Sebastian would live happily ever after. If she had just addressed the obvious issues that would result from a situation like hers and Olivia's, maybe they wouldn't be in the tangled mess right now.

Viola wanted to be mad at Olivia for disturbing the status quo, for rocking the boat and upsetting the balance of things. She wanted to blame Olivia for not being satisfied with Sebastian. She wanted to vehemently disagree with the assessment that Viola and "Sebastian" were more similar than she thought. Viola wanted this to be someone else's fault.

But it wasn't. And Viola couldn't do any of those things. She was pretty sure that Olivia knew she hadn't disguised herself as a guy to hurt anyone, but the damage was done. Feelings were hurt, people were hurt—and Viola had the awful premonition that more would be hurt before this was resolved. More than anything, she wanted to go back to the way things were. She wanted her friend back, and even though it had only been a couple days since Olivia's very personal confession, Viola was anticipating feeling the loss of someone so important to her. There had to be a way to fix this.

_But how?_

Viola had no idea how to deal with this and still keep Olivia as a friend. She felt the burden of responsibility for the situation, and it worried her. Sebastian's involvement in this thing worried her, too. What Duke would think if he found out and how it might affect their relationship, that worried her.

But the thing that worried her the most, the thing that she still refused to think about in the middle of the cafeteria with her boyfriend sitting right next to her, was the three or four seconds of insanity on Saturday night. Three or four seconds in which—

_Don't go there._

In which Olivia kissed her—

_Don't._

And Viola didn't push her away.

_Stop thinking._

_Just stop._


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note! Back to exclusively Olivia's POV this chapter. :)

The final paper for English Literature was kicking my ass, pure and simple. Sentences refused to gel into paragraphs, and therefore nothing made any good sense. Shakespeare was not something I was ever great with, and the constant inability to focus didn't help much either. I had erased and rewritten the same section of the paper at least four times, but it wasn't working no matter how hard I tried.

Yet there was Maria, sitting calmly at her desk in our room, typing furiously on her laptop. I thought maybe she was just on her instant messenger, but one look over her shoulder proved that she was only writing her paper, and probably writing it well. _How can she find meaningful symbolism in Shakespeare when the world is ending?_ The now-familiar envy bubbled up inside me again. Maria hadn't been totally uninvolved with the Sebastian fiasco from the beginning of the year; she was the one who told me to go out with Duke to make Sebastian jealous. Even so, finding out that Sebastian was actually Viola didn't seem to bother her all that much. Besides her mild surprise, she regarded it more as one of those random, quirky things that happen sometimes. She even thought it was a little funny that I had been obsessing over a girl the whole time. And then, just like that, she was over it.

That was the reason for her total lack of awareness of my current issues with Viola and Sebastian and all of it. I silently wished, as I did so often now, that I could be that aloof and casual about it, but given my position in all of this, that was impossible. Of course it was easy for Maria to be indifferent. She wasn't the one who fell for Viola-Sebastian in the first place. So now I just glowered at the back of her head, listening to the sound of her fingers on the keyboard and wishing I could trade places with her. Then she'd have to be the one worrying about the sky falling and I'd be the one with an 'A' paper.

Heaving a long sigh, I turned back to my computer screen and prepared to try rewriting that section for the fifth time. Behind me, the sound of typing suddenly ceased.

"You're driving me nuts, you know," Maria remarked from where she was sitting. Taken somewhat aback, I turned to face her.

"Pardon?" I said, puzzled.

"All the sighing and frustrated noises and slow, slow typing?" she said wearily. "Your spazzing is completely wrecking my concentration."

_Great, something else to feel guilty about._

"I'm sorry, Maria," came my weak and helpless reply. "The last week has been really hard with school and, um, finals coming…"

Maria's manner abruptly changed from tired and annoyed to one of keen interest, and she scrutinized me from across the room. Her eyes widened with something I could only interpret as understanding, or perhaps…vindication.

"Something happened with Viola, didn't it? That's why you've been such a nervous wreck lately," she triumphantly declared. After considering it a moment longer, she continued on with her assertions. "She found out about how you feel, right? Or maybe you told her…"

I was floored. It was a full minute before I could form words. "What—how did you—I never—" Even then, the words made no sense.

Maria rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Honestly, Olivia. You must think I'm stupid or something."

"No, I…"

"You don't think I haven't noticed that Viola is the only friend you've stopped talking about or that she doesn't come over here anymore? And all the crying you've been doing recently. The fact that Sebastian doesn't call, that the mere mention of Viola's name—look, you're doing it right now—makes you go all tense and jumpy." Maria paused to shake her head sympathetically at me. "Obviously, you thought I was clueless about this. Well, I'm not. You know, we used to be good enough friends that you would actually talk to me about what was going on in your life instead of trying to hide it from me."

When I couldn't say anything, she stood up and moved to sit on the edge of my bed so that she was closer to me.

"I hate to tell you, but I've been expecting this for a while," Maria said, eyes downcast. "I could see that you weren't over Sebas—I mean Viola, but you were in some pretty powerful denial. I kinda guessed that it would only be a matter of time before this exploded in you guys' faces. If I had to guess…you broke up with her brother, I think. That's what started this, right?"

I nodded, still unable to believe that Maria had known everything all along. Here I was trying to keep all of it hidden, and it was like she was reading it off a big sign stapled to my forehead. I hadn't told her about breaking up with Sebastian, but she'd figured it out anyway.

"You broke it off with him, and that led to all sorts of icky questions, and you ended up telling Viola that you still like her. And now you two really aren't speaking—I mean, I know you were avoiding her before, but now you've totally cut off all contact—because she didn't take it well. This is why you cry and don't talk about her ever and can't write papers and sigh all the time, and why I can't finish my thoughts about Shakespeare. Is that close to being right?"

"Yeah," I croaked. "You've pretty much got most of it."

Softening, she gave me a little smile. "What am I missing?"

"Um, Sebastian and I have sort of patched things up, and we're going to try to be friends," I began slowly. "Paul knows. He's the one who told me to tell everyone the truth."

"Ah, so it's _his_ fault I can't concentrate," Maria joked.

I smiled despite myself and continued on. "Nobody else knows, especially not Duke, and that's pretty much it, except…"

"Except what?"

"Except…I kissed Viola."

Maria's mouth fell open. "Okay—that? I did not predict. I never would have thought you'd have the balls for that."

"I didn't! I don't! I have no idea why I did it, it just…happened. Right over there, actually," I said sheepishly, pointing to the wall by the door.

"In our room? What did she do?" Maria exclaimed, gawking at the place I'd indicated.

"Nothing. I had just told her the truth, and we were fighting, and then—bam. I kissed her, and she just stood there. I literally ran away."

Comprehension dawned on Maria. "Oh, that was why you were gone all night."

"Yep."

Silence fell on us then as we both turned our thoughts over, trying to make sense out of it.

"What should I do?" I said finally, not really expecting an answer. It just felt better to ask.

Maria took a deep breath and let the air out slowly. "I think—and this is just me—I think you and Viola need to work this out. She has a boyfriend, and as far as I know, she's not bisexual, all cross-dressing aside. You guys have the same friends and go to the same school, so you're going to have to deal with her sooner or later. Yeah, it sucks, but you should find a way to move on from this and be friends again. That way, we might both be able to pass our finals next week."

I rested my forehead on my hand. Working things out with Viola was much easier said than done. I nodded anyway.

"You're probably right, Maria." I glanced at my computer screen. "I think we can get back to work now. I promise I'll try not to sigh and make frustrated noises."

"Good." She stood up to go back to her laptop and gave my shoulder a squeeze. Before long, the room was filled with the sound of her typing again, and I did my level best to think only about Shakespeare and not about how in the hell I was going to resolve this thing between Viola and me.

The typing stopped momentarily. "It'll be okay, Olivia."

Maria had meant it to be comforting, but I didn't feel any less discouraged.

\------------------------------

"I expect your papers on my desk by the end of the period on Wednesday, okay? Everybody clear on that?" Ms. Greenberg called out over the noise of students packing things up to leave for lunch. We grumbled our understanding of the infernal English Lit. paper's due date and trudged from the room. The hall was already full of people making their way to the cafeteria. I went with the flow, but I didn't feel much like eating.

I'd read a little about depression in school, and a cousin of mine was depressed once and had to take medication for it, but for my whole life up to this point, I couldn't remember ever having felt anything like the way people described depression. It had been one week and about 36 hours since the Saturday night of the concert, the Saturday night when I had told Viola that I had feelings for her and, because of temporary insanity, kissed her. That meant that it had been one week and about 36 hours since I last spoke to Viola. I did everything I could not to see her or even be in the same room with her. If I spotted her walking down the same corridor I was, I turned around and went another way. If she was in the cafeteria, I skipped lunch that day. Not that I ate very much anyway.

I started to wonder if this was what it was like to be depressed. Getting out of bed to go to school was a major struggle; all I wanted to do was stay under the covers where it was safe and sleep. I cried in the same bathroom stall at the same time every day at school. It was easier to designate a time for bawling my eyes out than to give in and cry at all the random times during the day that I suddenly felt like weeping. When other people were around who didn't know anything about my Viola Problem, I put on a brave, happy face and did my best to be "normal" Olivia. But I didn't feel brave, happy, or normal. I felt guilty and anxious, so anxious that I sometimes felt physically sick, and I felt something I can only describe as despair.

Countless times every day, I wished that I could just make everything and everyone else disappear, and it would only be the two of us. There would be no Duke, no Sebastian, no complicated issues of sexuality and labels, nothing but the person I met outside the headmaster's office…and me. I surprised myself with how certain I was that I didn't want Viola to be a guy again; I only wanted her to be Viola because Viola, the person, regardless of gender, was the one I wanted.

And I felt awful about that. I vacillated constantly between intense guilt and painful embarrassment. No matter how I tried to convince myself that this wasn't as catastrophic as I was making it out to be, it never worked. Pretending to believe that I had no reason to feel ashamed or humiliated got me nowhere.

It was a vicious, circular line of thought that always brought me back to the same place: I was in love with Viola Hastings, and she would never love me back the same way. And what was worse…she knew. We both knew. There was no taking that back, and it seemed pretty clear to me that there wasn't a way to simply erase her from my heart.

So I decided that this must be what that cold, dark place that some people go to when they feel pain so great that they just can't bear it anymore is like. Buried under the weight of something so heavy that you're helpless to get out from under it.

_Yes._

_Buried._

While the rest of the students veered right for the cafeteria, I took a left. I wasn't hungry, and my usual bathroom stall was starting to look pretty good. Just as I was about to clear the mass of people and break free, I heard it.

My name, ringing clearly over the noise of lunchtime chatter and hundred of footsteps.

"Olivia!"

I didn't turn to see who had called out my name. I knew who it was.

"Olivia, wait!"

I walked faster, aching to get to the girls' bathroom and lock myself in. I knew it was Viola. It didn't matter at all. I was crumbling under the weight of my feelings for her and everything they had already ruined, and maybe if I never saw her again, I might be able to avoid being totally destroyed.

\------------------------------

The final bell rang, and not nearly soon enough. My elation at the thought of finally retreating to my room and holing up was short lived; it was only Monday, and I had four more days to get through. Then it was the weekend, and after that there would be four days of final testing. Then, winter break would arrive to sweep me up and take me away from Illyria for three glorious, Viola-free weeks. I was practically giddy at the thought. I only hoped that I wouldn't end up flunking all my finals.

I shouldered my bag and left the classroom. All the other kids in my class were taking the main hallway to exit from the front of the school. I started down one of the smaller corridors that lead to a back entrance. There were far fewer people here, and the chances of my running into Viola were slim. For the hundredth time, I felt like a coward.

_I should take Maria's advice._ Most people, if they knew the details of the situation, would agree with her. I should do my best to work things out with Viola and find a way to be friends. It was the best solution for everyone. I just didn't believe I could do it, nor did I really think that Viola even wanted to.

_You're still a coward._

But how could I be a coward when I had already had the guts to tell her the truth? To break up with Sebastian? To kiss her, for god's sake? Nothing made any sense. I only knew that I had reached my limit, and now was the time to turn tail and run my ass off to get away from the entire mess.

I wrestled with feelings of anger and shame, but I felt pretty good about my decision to take the back way out of school. She wasn't here; I was safe for one more day.

It's just too bad that I was very, very wrong.


	8. Chapter 8

I was so intent on reaching the exit a mere two hundred feet away that I didn't see the hand shoot out from the supply closet before it was far too late. Someone strong grabbed me by the upper arm and yanked me rather forcefully into the little room to my left. I stumbled into a metal folding chair in the dark, and I heard the alarming sound of the door being closed and locked. Just as I was starting to get really scared, my abductor flicked on the lights.

Viola stood squarely in front of the door, arms folded across her chest. The hard, resolute look on her face was almost as frightening as the idea that some psycho rapist had just pulled me into the closet to attack me. I had no words. It was like I'd forgotten the English language and fourth grade grammar and the alphabet. My mind was a screaming white blank.

She seemed to take no notice of my speechless terror. "Before you start yelling at me for dragging you in here like some crazy person, I have to say something."

I was still frozen, unable to respond in any detectable way, so she continued.

"I've wanted to talk to you for a few days now, but you've gotten freakishly good at hiding from me. And today when I shouted at you, I know you heard me, but you ran away, I mean, like, _literally_ ran away. Obviously, you have some reservations about talking to me, or even being within a hundred feet of me. And you know, that's, um, understandable, but it means that this is the only way for me to get you to stand still in one place long enough to exchange a few words.

"So that's what we're gonna do, Olivia. This door is locked, and I—" she reached over and pulled a metal folding chair toward her, "intend to sit here until we've said every single thing there is to say about—this."

Viola paused, waiting for me to say or do anything. I studied her face and tried to suppress the ache that throbbed in my chest. _She means it. She's not letting me out until I talk to her._ There it was again, that weight pressing down on me, threatening to crush me. I didn't want to do this or be here or see her face or talk about this or deal with any of it—not anymore, not ever. The frayed end of my rope was very near, but I doubt Viola knew that.

"Seriously, Liv. I've got all day. If you would rather I start, that's cool. Just know that you have two choices: you can either sit in that chair across from me and we can work through this, or you can—"

It was like the Hoover dam breaking. All the hopelessness, worry, and stress welled up inside me until they overflowed and I began to sob uncontrollably. If I hadn't been so upset that I was beyond the point of caring, I would have been embarrassed to be standing there in front of Viola, red-faced and crying like someone had died. I just couldn't stop. It was almost a relief to finally let her see how this was affecting me.

She was in mid-sentence when I fell apart in that tiny supply closet, and her stunned silence made it clear that she hadn't been prepared for this.

"Or you can do that," she said very softly to no one in particular.

I was intensely aware of her eyes on me as I choked and tried to breathe through the tears, and finally the self-consciousness kicked in. I covered my face with both hands, attempting simultaneously to muffle the loud sobs and hide myself from Viola. Silently, I willed her to unlock the door and leave me here, to just turn around and walk out of my life so that both of us could retain a shred of dignity. I couldn't help but picture the kind of faces she must have been making then: distaste, contempt, discomfort, amusement, disgust, and so on. Part of me hoped to shame myself into getting a grip and pulling it together, but it had the opposite effect. Even more of me succumbed to the emotional collapse, and I only cried harder. 

So when I felt a pair of slender but well-muscled arms wrap all the way around me, I was somewhat startled, to say the least. Viola pulled me close to her and held me in such a gentle, openly concerned way that all the shock gradually wore off. I still had my hands over my face, but when I felt the brief, light touch of her lips on my temple, I let them fall away so I could tentatively put my arms around her and return the embrace. And then we just stood there, me crying into her shoulder and she holding me tightly, one hand stroking my hair.

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry," she whispered to me as I soaked her shirt with my tears.

_Damn, Lennox. That's two Hastings' in about eight days that you've blubbered all over._

Despite my continued sniffling, I had to smile.

I don't know how long we stayed like that. It probably wasn't more than five minutes, but it felt like hours. Strangely, it wasn't weird or uncomfortable at all. For the first time in a while, I felt safe, whole…loved. I didn't pull away from her until I had the tears pretty well under control. Disengaging my arms, I took two steps back to put some distance between us. I noticed that it took her a little while to let her hand slip off my arm, and I tried to give her a grateful smile. It soon turned into a wince when I laid eyes on the large wet spot on her shoulder from where I had cried on it.

I wiped at my face, and she backed up toward the door. "Look, I'm an idiot. I'll just unlock this and you can go—"

"No, don't," I said suddenly, immediately wondering what I was thinking. _She's giving you a way out. Just take it, stupid._

Viola looked as surprised as I felt. "Olivia, it's okay. It was insensitive of me to—"

"No, Viola, I'm okay now," I declared with as much confidence as I could, though it wasn't much. Reluctantly, my mind and my mouth, which seemed to have a will of its own lately, came to a consensus. Forcing her out of my life was a futile and childish thing to do. I would sit down in a closet filled with extra chairs, art supplies, two mops, and a broom and do exactly what Viola suggested: say every single thing there was to say about this. "You want to talk, so we should talk."

She still seemed uncertain. Even in the tense atmosphere, I suppressed a little smile. She was worried about me, and it was cute.

"You were right, I was hiding from you. I did run away from you at lunch today, and clearly that didn't solve anything because here we are in a broom closet. So, I think it's a good idea for us to, um, discuss this." To emphasize my point, I pulled my folding chair a little closer to Viola's and sat down. I smiled as widely as I could and hoped she couldn't tell that I was shaking all over.

Taking a deep breath, she lowered herself into her chair and smiled back at me. She hid it well with all the bravado when she first locked us in the closet, but I could tell she was nervous about this, too.

She cleared her throat. "Okay. Where do we start?"

I thought for a moment. "Well, there's something I've been wanting to ask you…"

Viola was starting to get visibly anxious now, but she nodded anyway. "Shoot."

I paused, choosing the right words. "Do you remember when we were at the Junior League luncheon, and we had a conversation in the bathroom?"

"You mean before Psycho Bitch came in and tried to kill you?"

"Yeah." I smiled, remembering that fight. It certainly wasn't amusing at the time, but thinking about Viola leaping onto Monique's back and clobbering her on the head, it was pretty damn funny. "Anyway, before Monique rudely interrupted, I told you…how I felt about Sebastian, or, about you, I guess."

Viola swallowed hard and looked away.

"And since then I've always wondered how that made you feel, standing there while I talked about…you."

She shifted in her seat before answering. "I would totally be lying if I said that I knew all along and it wasn't a complete surprise to me. Because yeah—it was quite a shock. I guess I felt scared that you would recognize me, and it sort of made me…afraid of you."

"Of me? Why?" I asked, raising my eyebrows in surprise.

"Well…" She trailed off, more uncomfortable by the second. "When you started talking about—well, kissing Sebastian, me, it really freaked me out. One second, I was only worrying about soccer and being found out and Duke, and then you hit me over the head with 'I have a huge thing for his roommate Sebastian', and realized I had this whole other issue to deal with that I didn't even know was there. Yeah, I was mad at you when I thought you liked Duke, but not after you told me the truth. After that, I was afraid…because you were my friend, and I didn't want anything to ruin that."

Instantly, my mind rewound to the Saturday night when I told her the truth, lost my mind, and kissed her. I felt sick, hearing her say she didn't want anything to ruin our friendship and knowing that what I had said and done probably accomplished that already.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, my eyes filling with tears.

"For what? Telling me that you liked Sebastian? You didn't know who I was, so you don't—"

"No, not for that."

"Then…what?" Viola phrased it like a question, but her voice betrayed her. She knew what I was really apologizing for.

"I'm sorry for dumping everything on you the night of the concert. I just couldn't hold it in anymore. I felt like every second I kept it to myself and pretended like nothing was happening, I was lying—to you, to me, to your brother, to everyone. Breaking up with Sebastian was the catalyst that started the crazy chain reaction, but I feel terrible for having put you in this position because I have…issues."

Viola looked as though she wanted to say something, but she didn't.

"Also, I want to tell you how sorry I am—" I had to stop and regain control of my faltering voice. Guilt, shame, and a hint of the despair I'd been fighting off for the past week roiled violently inside me, and I found that I could not look at Viola. "It's just that…I finally, _finally_ told you everything I had been hiding from you for so long, and you didn't want to believe me. It seemed like you thought I was, like, imagining my feelings for you, like I was crazy, and I wanted to—I don't know—prove to you that I really meant it. So I…I, um…"

"You kissed me," she softly finished my sentence. I refused to look at her face, so I had no clue how she was feeling right then. It scared the hell out of me, being alone with her in a tiny box of a room and openly discussing my significant lapse in judgment.

I nodded, fighting hard to maintain my composure. I was determined to be an adult about this. "Viola, that was—wrong of me, and I'm so sorry."

As I focused on an unopened box of graphite pencils sitting on the shelf next to me, I heard her take two deep breaths. If she didn't forgive me or kill me or react at all in the next thirty seconds, I felt sure I would explode from the tension. There was a very odd moment then, waiting for Viola, where I stepped outside myself, took one look at those graphite pencils and my swollen, puffy, tear-stained face and thought, _how is this my life? When did I become this person?_ Last year, if someone had told me that I would be sitting here in the supply closet, crying over a _girl_ who I originally thought was a guy and fell in love with, I would have told that unfortunate person to screw off. I had my college boyfriend, and we were perfect together. My life was perfect.

_This is not my life._

"Olivia?"

Viola's voice brought me crashing back to reality, and I was forced to accept that this, in fact, was my life. "Yeah?"

"I, uh, I feel like the whole point of us sitting in here is to talk about this, but talking about it won't do any good unless we're both honest—about everything," she said, and I had no idea where she was going with this. "The real reason I've wanted to talk to you so badly the last few days is that I could already feel our friendship slipping away from me, and I don't want that. So far, you've been totally honest with me, and—I think it's time I held up my end of the bargain."

Displaying a boldness I didn't feel, I carefully turned to look at her. Her bright blue-green eyes were moist, and she fidgeted with her hands.

"I must be a complete asshole for letting you sit there and apologize to me when all of this is my fault. Mine. If I hadn't decided to become a male impersonator for two weeks, none of this would have ever happened, and you wouldn't be crying like you are right now."

I leaned forward and looked her squarely in the eye. "You never meant to hurt anyone, and I know that."

"But I did hurt people, Liv. I hurt you, and I can't imagine how awful it must have been for you, carrying all of it around for so long. I deserved to hear everything you said to me the night of the concert. I needed to know the truth whether I wanted to or not. I was pretty uncomfortable at first, and I'm sorry for trying to make a joke out of it, but I want you to know that I get it, and you don't need to be embarrassed about it, and I'm not assuming that you are, I'm just saying…you don't need to be." She brightened then, flashing me one of those smiles. _Oh god, Viola, this is so not the time._ "And hey, I have to say that I'm terribly flattered. Plus, this will give me ammunition against my brother for the rest of our lives."

We laughed, and it sounded so strange, a happy thing like laughing intruding on this very emotionally loaded conversation. Her smile soon faded, though, and the nerves came creeping back into her body language. There was still something else, and I dreaded knowing what it was.

"Listen, I just wanted to say…" The rest of the sentence disappeared as she silently warred with herself over whatever she needed to tell me. It took her a full minute or so to continue on, and I struggled to breathe normally. "I really love Duke, I do. And I've never—well, maybe not _never_ , but, like 98 percent of the time—I'm not usually attracted to…um…girls. But, uh, in the interest of complete honesty, because we're trying to save our relationship here, I think that you…that I…"

_Oh my god. What is she doing?_

"Well, you've obviously admitted a lot of sensitive, personal things to me recently, so it's only fair that I tell you—" She squeezed her eyes shut, scrunching her face up in a nervous way that was so adorable that I actually had to bite my lip to keep from smiling like a moron. She quickly opened her eyes again and inhaled slowly. "Olivia, about when you kissed me…"

I blushed so badly that I could feel the heat radiating from my face.

"You really scared the shit out of me at first. I mean, it was the last thing I ever expected you to do, but besides the shock…" Again, she seemed to be bracing herself, and her eyes dropped to the floor between us. "It was kind of…nice. Very nice, actually."

There was a very pregnant pause before I found my voice. "Oh," was all I could think of to say, and I hoped the intense blush went away before Viola saw it.

She cleared her throat, and the folding chair creaked as she shifted position. "Okay, so now that I've told you that…do you still want to be friends?"

"That's a pretty dumb question, Vi."

She smiled. "I was worried that you didn't want to, what with all the hiding and running from me and stuff."

"I'm sorry about that. I've just been having a really hard time with this. I didn't think you would want anything to do with me, knowing how I—how I feel."

Viola raised her eyes to mine and gave me a long look that sent a shiver up and down my spine. "Olivia Lennox, I will always want to be your friend."

"This isn't going to be easy for me, Viola," I said quietly, and it suddenly occurred to me that I was now in the same position with Viola that Sebastian was with me. "I can't go back to pretending I don't love you. Because…I do love you. But I don't want to lose you as a friend."

"I can deal with that," she said, equally as quiet.

"We, uh, don't have to tell Duke about this, do we?" I asked, feeling ridiculous for not having thought of this before.

"Nope, as long as you don't tell him what I said about kissing you," she replied, and I swore I saw a blush creep into her cheeks.

"Friends?" I said.

"Friends."

She stood up, folded the chair, and set it against the wall. Turning back to me, she held out her hand, obviously meaning for me to take it. I carefully put my hand in hers and let her gently pull me up. I expected her to let go right away, but she held on. She unlocked the door and pulled it open, revealing the deserted hallway.

"Come on, let's get out of here," she said, lightly squeezing my fingers.

I nodded, smiling, and we walked out into the hallway together. As we exited the school, I didn't quite know what to make of the fact that she was still holding my hand.

\----------------------------

I didn't flunk all my finals. In fact, I aced English Literature, Shakespeare and all. Maria did quite well in her classes, too. Sebastian and I managed to become good friends with a minimum of awkward moments. He even started dating Yvonne, and everyone agreed that they made a good couple. Paul was as supportive as always, lending me his shoulder whenever I needed one, not to mention bringing me chocolate. I started going to soccer games again, and Viola noticed.

Getting out of bed was easier, but I still had to find time to cry every so often. I didn't avoid Viola in the halls, and hanging out with her became less and less difficult. Nothing had changed about the way I felt, but the fact that she knew my secret and didn't want me to hide it helped enormously. I was getting my friend back, and I was happier than I had been in a long time.

Even so, there were many times when I just couldn't be around her, especially when she was with Duke. One of the most unfortunate side effects of the whole ordeal was the strain it put on my relationship with Duke. Things weren't quite the same with us, and he couldn't know why. He and Viola continued going strong, though, despite any weirdness that existed between the three of us. I did my best not to feel jealous when I knew he was with Viola, and it worked…most of the time.

Sometimes, when I wanted to tempt fate, I would remember the way her lips felt on mine, or hear "very nice, actually" echoing in my memory. And there were other times when I would feel Viola watching me when she thought I wasn't looking, or she would grin at me the way that made me feel like fainting, or a hug would last just a fraction of a second longer than it should have.

Now, walking together to the cafeteria, I felt her fingertips brush the back of my hand in what felt like a slightly deliberate way, and I couldn't help but wonder if maybe... But then she saw Duke and ran into his arms, and I smiled, though I was trying to ignore the lingering feeling of her touch on my hand.

I sighed and followed them into the cafeteria, still smiling.

As always.


End file.
